A. They must have transparency about performance and costs of services if they are going to understand and challenge their housing provider.

Q. What happens if residents are not satisfied with their landlord or housing provider?

A. Very little, apart from complaining or raising issues with their board or council. Changing your landlord is only open to council tenants, not to registered providers. This is via the "right to manage" (TMO) or through the "right to challenge". Registered providers can only use the transfer process.

Q. Is this the same if you are happy with your landlord but not happy with your housing manager?

A. Yes, unless the landlord uses an external partner to manage their day-to-day housing management services. It is important to understand that there are two distinct roles, the landlord role and the housing manager. Separating the two roles can lead to resident choice about their housing manager.

Q. Can you explain what this means?

A. If you draw an analogy with a supermarket, if you go in one shop and the goods are inferior and/or more expensive, you can go to another. In other words, if you asked other housing managers (councils, registered providers, private and third sector) to bid for the housing management, you will get a range of costs and performance that can be measured against the existing provider. Residents would then have real choice about performance and costs.

Q. Most organisations use benchmarking to measure their performance and costs, isn't that enough?

A. No. In my view, benchmarking allows providers to deliver a coasting service and not strive for top performance or reduced costs. If there is no competition, there is no real drive to deliver changes for residents.

Q. Does a choice in housing manager improve services and reduce costs?

A. In our experience, services and KPIs improve and costs are lower.

Q. Does that mean the housing manager makes more profits?

A. No. As the housing revenue account is ringfenced, any savings are ploughed back into frontline services or invested in new build.

Q. What else does competition bring?

A. Each provider would have to bid for the work. This will focus on achieving outcomes using innovation, ideas, new expertise, different management processes, new technology and new ways of empowering staff and residents to achieve common aims and ambitions. Improved performance and reduced cost will be at the heart of any bid. Residents can only gain through this process.

Q. Should all housing providers be subject to challenge?

A. Yes, but no one provider should have a monopoly on service delivery. In our experience, a mixed economy of providers, where there are more organisations, creates the right mix of competition to drive up performance and reduce costs. This would allow, public, private, third sector, community and joint ventures to work together to provide the best quality public services for residents.